Selected poems from Les Fleurs du mal, translated for song

Hymn to Beauty (Hymne a la Beaute)

Do you come from the heavens or from the abyss,
O Beauty? Your gaze both accursed and divine,
Pours a confusion of virtue and vice,
And for this we contently compare you to wine.

You contain in your eyes the sunset and dawn;
You scatter perfume like a nocturnal gale;
Your kisses a potion, your mouth a cauldron;
Both weakens the hearty and ruddies the pale.

Do you rise from the chasm or fall from the stars?
While fate, bewitched, sniffs at your skirts like a hound.
You indifferently dole out caresses and scars,
You govern all things without gesture or sound.

And you trod on the dead with disdain, O Beauty!
Yes, Horror is not your least prized bagatelle.
And Murder, your plaything, capricious and broody,
Trots out on your belly a coy tarantelle.

Your candle enchanted the moth to his death
As he crackled and burned, still the flame he forgave.
The lover hunched over and gasping for breath
Looks to me like a dying man fondling his grave.

Who cares where you come from–heaven or hell?
O Beauty! You monster, macabre and naive
If your eyes, or your glance, or your kick is the spell
To crack open the infinite–when can we leave?

Sent by God or the Devil, are you Siren or Spirit?
What does it matter? You soft-eyed ondine!
Without rhythm and light, and perfume, I might fear it,
But you make life worth living, my singular queen!